Homeopathy in Pets

HOMEOPATHY FOR PETS


Although homeopathy is becoming more popular, there still is a lot of people who do not know what it is or that it can be very effective for treating problems in both themselves and their pets. I have been using homeopathy now for 4 years in my veterinary practice and find that it an excellent treatment modality for a wide variety of problems commonly encountered in pets. It doesn’t work for everything, but nothing ever does.


Homeopathic remedies are made from many different substances including plants including herbs, minerals, metals and animal products (such as snake venom!). They are extremely diluted and, using a process called succussion, they become very potent, deep-acting, yet gentle medicines without toxic side effects. All of the remedies have been thoroughly studied for their unique effects on body, emotions and mind.


To get our heads around how something so dilute could be effective, it might be appropriate to compare it to a shark and its ability to smell blood in the ocean from a distance of nearly half a kilometre! Or perhaps another example to show how extremely small amounts of substances can have a profound effect is a cancer-detecting dog that can smell certain minute amounts of chemicals in the breath of a person with lung cancer.


An example of a successful homeopathic treatment is a dog patient of mine named “Nico” that had a strong tendency to bolt whenever he got the opportunity and did not listen to his owners well at all. After “taking his case” and finding out all of his symptoms, I prescribed Lachesis and we gave 2 doses in 24 hours. For various reasons, I felt strongly that he was exhibiting a reaction to Rabies vaccination and chose a remedy that has been shown to help out with this condition. Within 2 weeks, his desire to bolt was reduced by a huge margin and he is now listening to his owners much better. Amazing? Not really when you consider that the body has an astounding ability to heal itself given the right stimulus. And, yes, behaviourial problems or mental symptoms are very often indicators of dis-ease.


In homeopathy, we look for what is different between patients, what makes each pet unique, so we can treat the patient rather than the disease. It is the whole pet who is affected by disease and it is the whole pet that responds to medicines. This is why, by looking at the whole patient and the totality of all the symptoms, a homeopathic practitioner can prescribe one single medicine for that patient at a time along with supportive treatments such as fluids or supplements.


An example of how individuals can react differently to the same disease would be two different dogs with a diagnosis of inhalant allergies or what is known as Canine Atopy. Both dogs have the common symptom of being itchy, but one might be worse in the morning, has redness of all of its orifices, is generally lazy, hungry and tired, and needs to get up at 5AM every day for his first bowel movement. The other dog might be obese, thirsty, worse in the evenings and feels better with warm applications. Each of these dogs is reacting to his disease in very different ways, so each needs a different remedy to help him out.

"The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer."
Thomas J. Watson


Homeopathy is not a quick fix. True healing, natural recovery from disease, cannot be forced. It is a process in which a pet attains a higher level of health and the disease resolves naturally. This is what homeopathy is all about. Patience is required for chronic conditions, but it is truly amazing to see how fast it works in acute conditions.


Homeopathy works best when there are no obstacles to cure such as continued drug usage, vaccinations or poor quality diets. It also works best if it is chosen early on in the course of the disease rather than after years of cortisone and antibiotic treatments. If a patient is treated first with some other modality, including conventional medicine, the first symptoms that disappear will be the characteristic symptoms, the ones that are the most useful in selecting the correct remedy. All that remains then will be the common symptoms, which makes the case more difficult to treat.





Principles of Homeopathy

Law of Similars

• Like cures like
• Simillimum
• Examples: coffee, burns, sprained ankles

Provings done on healthy people

• Provings are tests carried out on healthy individuals to see what symptoms come forth, including mental, emotional and physical.
• Symptoms are graded depending on how prevalent they are and how strong.

Minimum Dose

• Hahnemann’s experience with Belladonna treating children with Scarlet Fever
• Patients are excessively sensitive to the influence of the similar remedy
• Smallest dose possible to elicit a curative raction


Potency

• Process of dilution and shaking vigourously (succussion) makes them more effective in their curative effects.
• Hahnemann’s description: “develops to a formerly unheard of degree the internal, spirit-like medicinal powers of crude substnaces….”.
• Potentization or Dynamization – these medicines mainly have influence on the life principle.





The Significance of Local Disease
(see Dr. Pitcairn’s notes entitled such)

The importance of recognizing the concepts and truths in this portion taken from Dr. Samuel Hahnemann’s most famous work becomes very clear when you read the explanatory notes by Dr. Pitcairn in the margins. We can apply suppressive lotions and creams to external lesions, we can cut them off, we can burn them off or irradiate, but in the end, we have done nothing to address their cause. This goes for cancers as well.

An example of this is a dog that had an aggressive eyelid tumour that was large and growing to the point where it obscured his vision in that eye and he was always pawing at it, making it bleed. After a couple months trying homeopathic remedies, the owners wished to have the eye removed, which I did, albeit with some misgivings. Sure enough, within a month, the “dis-ease” had manifested itself again by growing a tumour all down the side of his face and the only option at that time was euthanasia. Another tumour example is a young large dog with malignant bone cancer in his hind leg. The owners elected conventional amputation followed by chemotherapy, hoping for a year of survival time. Two months after chemo was begun, he had metastatic cancer in his lungs, only one week after his last chemo treatment. With homeopathy, we likely would have achieved a similar, if not longer, survival time at much less expense.

Surgery is one of the most major forms of suppression. The lesion has usefulness – it is the life force’s best effort to keep disease controlled. If the lesion is removed, this will weaken the whole system and the disease will worsen. I have seen this numerous times.

Other examples include the use of topical steroid/antibiotic preparations in the ears for external ear infections. What often occurs, once the drugs are stopped, is that the ear infection comes back very quickly and with a vengeance. This is an example of suppression.

Signs of Cure

1. Homeopathic aggravation

2. Increased well-being

3. Return of normal behaviour

4. Resistance to disease

5. Improvement of symptoms

6. An episode of “crisis”

7. Brief occasional return of symptoms

8. Return of “old” symptoms


Homeopathic medicines in themselves don’t cure. They act as a stimulus or trigger for the life force to push it in the right direction to cure itself.




Treatment of Common Ailments
(from Dr. Pitcairn’s notes)

General Instructions: use one remedy at a time in 30c potency and administer 2 pellets (larger #35 size) or about 10-15 pellets (smaller, #10 size) every hour for a total of 3-4 doses.

Dry Injuries
Blows, Concussions & Contusions
Injuries, esp. to soft tissue, but also to the head: ARNICA
Head Injury (acute phase): Arn, cic, hypr
Head injury (lingering effects): nat-m, Nat-s
Spinal injury: arg-n, Arn, HYPR, kali-c, Nat-s, phys, Rhus-tox
Sudden paralysis of legs from disk disease: Nux-v
Injury to bones: Arn, Ruta
Remaining pain after an injury: Symph (comfrey)
Gangrene sets in after an injury to soft tissue: Lachesis (snake venom)
Gangrene, tissues already black: Ars, Chin
Blows to fingers: Hyper
Sprains & Dislocations
Sprains & twisting of the trunk of the body: Rhus-t (first), Bry
Sprain of a joint: Arn, Rhus-t, Bry (use next day if pain worsens with movement)
Backache: Bry, Nux-v, Calc, Sep, Sul
Tendency to sprain back: Calc, Sil, Sep, Nat-c

Fractures
Immediate pain and shock: Arn
Pain following initial stage, from injury to periosteum: Ruta
To accelerate the healing process: Symph


Bloody Injuries


Contusions Creating Wounds
Skin torn: Arn
Large pieces of tissue torn off, wound gaping and cannot be drawn closed: Calen

Excoriations
From physical abrasions: Sul-ac (also externally by diluting low potency)
If lesion becomes gangrenous: Chin, Ars

Stab & Cut Wounds
Pricks, punctures with needles, thorns, claws, cuts with knives: Hypr
Injuries with very sharp instruments, penetrating deeply (like in surgery): Staph
Surgery with much manipulation and tissue handling: Arn, CALEN
Splinters deep in tissue and cannot be extracted: Hep, Sil

Bites
From an angry cat: Lach
From a poisonous snake: Led, Lach, Crot-h
From a dog: Lyss
Sting of bees and wasps: Apis, Led
Mosquito bites: wash with diluted Arnica tincture or with diluted ammonia water
Flea bites: Apis

Burns
Slight burns of surface parts: Urt-u (externally as a poultice, keep moistened for several hours
Painful burns, threatening tissue damage (early stage): Canth
Deep burns, likely subsequent necrosis (later treatment): Ars
Old burns: Caust

Hemorrhages
Hemorrhage 9other than from large vessels): Arn
Bleeding prolonged, normal clotting delayed: Ipec, Phos, Ars, Crot-h, Lach
Weakness after blood loss: Chin


Miscellaneous Conditions

Shock & collapse after injury or surgey: Stront, Ars, Carbo-v, Acon, Verat

Fearful cat just bitten or scared by something: Acon followed next day with Arn if very sore or Lach if smells gangrenous

Cystitis, severe and bloody: try Canth

Post FUS: bladder problems, from stretching or nerve damage: Caust

Anti-freeze: Nit-ac

Rejection of newborn: Sep

Grief: Ign

Dizziness: Gels

Dysentery, garbage gastritis: Merc-c

Eating stool, craving mud: MERC, CALC, Sul

Incontinence: Caust

Heat stroke: BELL